Monday Evenin’ Comin’ Down

Rain is pouring down in massive quantities outside my window as I type this. The unsettled environment rather matches the unsettled news cycle today:

— Check out Glenn Greenwald on how the mainstream press and certain politicians are drumming up this insane McCarthyesque hysteria against Iran’s largely ceremonial president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, who they make out to be this grand dictatorial mastermind when in fact he’s not much more than a figurehead. But of course such considerations are as nothing when our great and wise leaders of the PNAC Platoon have decided that they want to bomb Iran, even if it means causing the Shiites next door in Iraq to break their years-long truce against attacking Americans. (Yes, kiddies: Most of the attacks against US troops in Iraq are being done by Iraqi Sunnis, not Iraqi Shia and certainly not, despite the media’s constant regurging of Bush propaganda, Al Qaeda. If the Iraqi Shiites see their fellow Shia next door in Iran get bombed by us, do you think they’ll still refrain from attacking our troops?)

— Meanwhile, here in Minnesota, Land of Falling Bridges, Stingy Republicans, and a Transportation Department so starved for cash that its own headquarters is falling apart, the torrential rains outside my window remind me of the special session that Tim Pawlenty said would take care of the needs of the people in southeastern Minnesota whose homes, businesses and towns were washed away last month. Except, of course, that when the cameras went away, Smilin’ Tim does what he always does to anyone not rich enough to be a major GOP donor or otherwise hurt him in any way: He screwed them. (Remember, this guy wants to be your next vice president. Keep track of what he does.)